Meet the Spy
by Harold3456
Summary: After decades of sitting at a cramped desk, watching the world change around him, the former RED Spy is sent on a mission by his employers-to infiltrate the defunct BLU 2Fort base and capture vital Intelligence from the past.


This is a story I wrote shortly after the Meet the Spy video. I was trying to capture a nostalgic feeling, similar to Snake's return to Shadow Moses in MGS4. Please review - constructive criticism in the fanfiction community helps me to improve upon my writing in the real world.

_Like a phantom, the Spy glided across the BLU battlements, butterfly knife in hand. The battlements were nearly deserted, aside from a lone Sniper crouched in the shelter, firing on the RED team down below._

_ Unnoticed, the Spy stepped into the square building, reversing the butterfly knife in his hand so that the blade pointed downward, ready for a thrust into the enemy's exposed back._

_ The Spy deactivated his cloak, revealing a man in an expensive, red pinstriped suit and mask. Unfortunately the cloak didn't evaporate silently, and the Sniper turned around upon hearing the sound._

_ Acting fast, the Sniper grabbed the gun in both hands, holding it parallel to his shoulders, and rushed the Spy in an attempt to knock him back. The Spy grabbed the weapon in his own hands, however. Both men grappled for control of the gun, each trying to push the other off his feet. Suddenly, the Spy kicked the man knocking him backward off his feet and into the window. He fumbled on a nearby table until his hands found his Kukri, and he started swinging madly. The Spy leaped back to avoid the clumsy, panicked attacks. While the Sniper recovered from one of his swings, the Spy attacked with his knife, deftly slicing the enemy's cheek with the blade. The attack was superficial, far from serious, but it succeeded in startling the Sniper into brief pause. This was all the distraction that the needed. He swung the knife again, catching the Sniper in the side. The Blu marksman stumbled, and in doing so he exposed his back. The Spy brought the knife down, straight into the center of the man's back. With a scream, the Sniper fell through the window to the ground far below. The Spy smirked as he heard the thud of the man's impact with the ground, and the screaming ceased. "You got blood on my suit." He muttered._

September, 1999

"Emile! Wake up! We're almost there!" The pilot shouted back to him. Emile awoke, startled, from his dream, where he was still the nameless Spy, a man of mystery and deception.

Emile Delacheroix, formerly known only as the RED Spy, shifted uncomfortably in the chair in the back of the helicopter. Over forty years had passed since he had been the man of the shadows, the red phantom, and the age had taken a toll on him. Since the breakup of the Builders League United, and the Spy's subsequent firing from Reliable Excavations and Demolitions in 1965, he had been working mainly desk jobs; he had found some work during the Cold War as a man of espionage for a few good years, but that all came to a close quicker than he had hoped. By the mid 1970's, the governments had sophisticated satellite technology to monitor the enemy without the need of agents in the field. Emile's spy technology, the disguise kit and the cloak, were really nothing more than smoke and mirrors; there was infrared technology now that could see right through it. Ten short years after Emile's glory days as a young, daring Spy, and he was already an obsolete relic.

The agency who had hired him – Aperture Science, in its ever raging battle versus Black Mesa – gave him a desk job, working a computer, as a way of thanking him for his dangerous contributions. As a result, the Spy's thin, muscular form had lost much of its definition. While he still had all of his hair, it was mostly grey. His eyes were slightly sunken, and there were crow's feet around the edges. He tried to stay in shape, and managed to save his lean form even into his sixties. Looking at him now, nobody would know who – or what – he had once been. Furthermore, he had always longed to be the Spy once more, a man without identity, in a much simpler time when everything was either Red or Blu. He didn't even have a mask anymore.

Emile wore a simple black suit over a light-red, almost pink shirt; the entire outfit had cost him $100 at Men's World. Now that he wasn't putting his life on the line anymore, the pay sucked. He saw the looks that people gave him in the office, as well. They all pitied him; none of them knew who he once was – his past was still a mystery. They all knew that his glory years had long passed, however, and he was really only being kept with the company out of pity. None of them knew that, at one time, people feared him.

_I never really was on your side._

"Hey!" The pilot, a young man in his twenties called back. "We're here!"

Emile gazed out the window of the helicopter, at a sight that he hadn't seen in a long time. A red barn loomed in the middle of a hot field of dusty grass. Emile's heart panged as he instantly recognized the red base of 2Fort. The words "Happy Farmers" were still inscribed in the RED tower, having defiantly survived the elements, although the rest of the wooden fortress was completely rotted and dilapidated.

The small helicopter flew by the RED fort, passing a bridge which was half destroyed, and a canal which had dried up, touching down in front of a second fortress, this one much shorter and more modern looking: Builders' League United.

Emile couldn't help but smirk at the sight of the building. Trust these two companies to set up fortresses to guard colossal underground bases that were only one hundred feet from each other. Truly, the sixties were a glorious time.

Emile's mission was simple; grab the Intelligence. The BLU base had been deserted for forty years, but just recently Emile's agency had realized that the BLUs' teleporter technology could be vital in perfecting Aperture's own fledgling Portal technology, a move which would run Black Mesa into the dust. The secrets of this technology could purportedly be found in a briefcase. Itching to be deployed to the field once more before he retired, Emile told his bosses that he knew exactly where the Intelligence briefcase could be found. Now here he was, for the first time in forty years, standing before the double entrance to the now-defunct BLU fort.

Emile opened the door to the helicopter, and hopped out as the helicopter landed. The pilot didn't accompany him. He had requested to be deployed alone.

"I'll be here when you come out!" The pilot called to him. Emile nodded and waved, to tell the pilot that he understood. The man nodded, and then killed the engine on the helicopter.

The helicopter noise died down, and it was completely silent when Emile entered the Blu base. The two doors converged into one wide hallway. Walking along it, passing under an old, rusty grate, Emile was drowned in a wave of memories. Many bitter battles had been fought in this corridor, and many friends lost. Dried blood could still be seen on the faded, filthy walls.

Emile walked deeper into the base. There were no lights; certainly no power had been given to this facility in decades. He pulled a small, LED flashlight from his pocket and flicked it on. The light cast long shadows over familiar areas, rendering them instantly unfamiliar. The light glinted off of blue metal, not yet rusted, and Emile turned to look at it. A blue, rectangular box, adorned with quaint little knobs and dials reminiscent of 1960's technology. Emile approached it, wiping a thick layer of dust off the screen. The screen was cracked, but he could still see the gauge that informed the user if the machine was empty. A drawer down at the bottom of it was ajar, and he could see numerous bits of assorted ammunition inside, including a large rocket sitting on the top of the pile.

_ The Spy saw the Dispenser sitting in the corner, unguarded, and reached for an electro-sapper. The absence of a visible Engineer meant that the Dispenser was an easy kill, yet he still hesitated, for if he destroyed it he would alert the Engineer to his presence. He put his Dispenser away. It wasn't worth it; he had a perfectly good Scout disguise that he was loathe to give up. Besides, Dispensers were a dime a dozen. If he destroyed it, there would always be more. The Spy passed the Dispenser by, only pausing to grab a handful of revolver bullets._

Emile entered the courtyard. Uncovered by any roof, it was brightly lit. Emile squinted, his eyes passing over old, wooden stairs and platforms. In a corner, behind a fence, was a rusty truck, possibly from as early as the 1930's.

Emile's flashlight illuminated the area outside Blu's Resupply, which had been dubbed "The Spawn" by players for some reason. There were small stacks of rotted hay in a corner. When Emile stepped into the room, at least a dozen rats emerged from the brown hay and scattered across the room.

In the corner of this room, Emile saw a doorway with the word "INTELLIGENCE" on a neon, blue-and-white sign. The sign wasn't lit, but it glowed pathetically in the beam of the light. Emile passed under it, and was startled to see a skeleton on the ground at his feet.

It wore a long, white medical coat over a white shirt, with an old, half-rotted blue tie. The fabric itself had been gnawed through in many places, where rats had struggled to get at the rotting body. An insignia of a cross could barely be made out on the corpse's shoulder. The skull grinned up at him with rotting teeth.

_The Spy has already breached our defences. You have seen what he has done to our colleagues. And worst of all, he could be any one of us._

Emile suddenly remembered the Medic's face – he had been in his forties, with black hair and glasses, and Emile had broken his arm before killing him. He felt his skin tingle, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Beyond the corpse was a ramp, spiralling downward. Emile had walked this ramp, the enemy ramp, countless times before, although he preferred to take the straighter, wider stairs that were across the courtyard.

He needed a cigarette, but he had quit years ago. Nonetheless, he reached into his jacket, to a breast pocket which hadn't even been there since the RED days. There was nothing there. Grimacing, he continued down the spiral stairs.

At the bottom, he shone his light in a sweeping arc across the room. There were two corridors, which both led into the Intel room. To his direct right was a door, which said, "Only Authorized Personnel Beyond This Point." A second skeleton lay in the doorway, holding the door open, clad in overalls. A skull gaped up at him, with a hardhat strapped to its head. There was a bullet hole in the hardhat, with a trickle of dried blood beneath it.

Looking to his left, Emile saw the rusted pieces of metal that were the remains of this fallen man's sentry and, beyond that, a masked man in a red, pinstriped suit. _The man gazed at him, giving him a cold, piercing stare, and suddenly they weren't alone in the room, for standing between them was a man in blue coveralls and a hardhat, banging on a large Sentry gun with his wrench. The darkness was lifting, and soon the lights on the roof were bright again. Near a pack of health and some ammunition, a row of giant computers lined the walls, large metal boxes that were taller than the people who operated them. Their lights were lit up and they were making tiny beeping sounds, which were dwarfed by the clanging of the wrench, and the Sentry gun's own metallic chirps. The sentry stood on a metal tripod; for its time, it had been an amazing piece of technology, nothing like the talking Sentries of Aperture Science, or the Hunters of Black Mesa, but still amazing nonetheless. A launcher sat atop two small, multi-barrelled machineguns, holding four rockets inside of it. The launcher gave off the impression of a head._

_ The RED Spy wasn't looking at Emile anymore. Pulling a Sapper out of his suit, he slid it toward the Sentry. Immediately, the Sentry made a "_bzzt_" sound as it powered down, and then exploded. The man with the wrench – the Engineer – cried "Sentry down!" as the Spy stepped out of the shadows, drawing a large, ivory-handled revolver from beneath his jacket. Emile stepped out of the way as the scene unfolded. The Engineer ("Engie to mah friends", the man had told Emile in confidence once, while the latter was still disguised as a Scout)fumbled in his holster for his pistol, but it was too late. The Spy cracked off a single shot, and the man went down with a bullet in his brain, knocking open a door that read "Only Authorized Personnel Beyond This Point". The Spy took one look into the lit room, where a startled Demoman sat with a bottle of whiskey in hand. He fired a second time and then, hitting a button on his watch, disappeared_.

The room fell dark once more, and the Demo with the bullet in his brain disappeared into the blackness. The computers stopped their incessant beeps, and the Engineer's skin disappeared, replaced by the skull. His blue overalls faded rapidly. It was 1999 again; Emile shook his head to clear it – he wasn't the Spy anymore. He really needed a smoke to counteract these vivid flashbacks. He had a job to do, and the pilot was probably already getting impatient.

He entered the Intel room. There were three corpses with him inside: a man in a blue trench coat and helmet, with an old, abandoned shotgun lying beside him, a big-boned skeleton wearing a blue shirt and dark vest, with a chain of ammunition slung over his shoulder and a butterfly knife sticking from his back, and finally a man in a blue, pinstriped suit, headless, with an old-fashioned metal cigarette kit in his right hand. Heart filling with nostalgia, Emile remembered the two uses for the kit; to hold his cigarettes, as well as create his disguises. Smoke and mirrors.

The Intel was on a desk nearby, where it had always been. It was in a blue briefcase which, though faded, looked like it had held up over the years.

Behind the fallen Blu men was a large window, which spanned the entire wall. Although it was completely dark down below, Emile could vividly imagine a massive, high tech facility; aisles of computers that stood twenty feet tall, back in the days when computers were a new invention. There were also huge satellite maps down below, spanning the distant wall. These couldn't be seen with the facility lights dead.

_"I kill plenty of Spies. They're dime-a-dozen, back-stabbing scumbags. Like you (ow)! No offense."_

_ "If you managed to kill them then I assure you they were not like me. And nothing, NOTHING like the man who is inside this building!"_

_ "What are you, President of his fan club?"_

_ "No, that would be your mother!"_

It had been good acting on Emile's part, playing the role of the Blu Scout – the Scout that the reds had caught in their own Intel room and captured, the previous day – and going so far as to hurt himself with the same knife that he had plunged into the Sniper's back only a half hour earlier. Now, shining the light onto the floor in front of the desk, he saw scattered pictures, and knew what they were. Crossing the room, he knelt down near the photos, wincing as he put pressure on his bad knee. Scooping up a couple pictures, which showed him making love to a beautiful woman in her early forties (while still wearing his mask. Woman of the time were helpless to resist a man of mystery. This wasn't so in the 90's.), he rose to his feet and leaned upon the desk. "Ah, ma petite chou-fleur." He muttered to himself, remembering the exact words that he had uttered.

Suddenly, he heard noises from back the way he came. He whirled around, listening. Was it the pilot?

"It's gotta still be down here! Geez, looks like nobody's touched this place in years!"

"Are you sure?" A second voice asked, sounding agitated. "God, this place gives me the creeps!"

"This is nothin'! You shoulda seen it how it was, back when Pyros and Spies still lurked these halls!"

"Hmm," The second man muttered noncommittally. "Must've been rough."

"Brudda, let's just say that if you were from where I was from, you'd be fuckin' dead!"

Both the voice and the accent were unmistakeable. After all these years, it was the Scout!

"Be careful, Allie." The second man, whose name was apparently Harold, said. "Remember that Aperture Science helicopter that was lurking outside. There could be more people in here."

"This place is a freakin' ghost town!" The Scout replied. "Besides, we have the Hunters! God, so many memories. . ."

The pair entered the room as Emile clicked a button on his watch, the watch which he had just looted off of the Blu Spy. Two men stepped into the room, followed by two looming creatures that stood seven feet tall, with blue bodies, which looked like they were half-organic, half machine. Emile backed into the corner and watched. The Blu Spy had one of those Cloak and Dagger watches, which had been revolutionary for its time. Hopefully it still worked properly, or he was dead.

One of the two men who walked in, the younger one, was tall and lean. He wore spectacles on his face, and had receding brown hair. The second man was much larger, in his late fifties, and almost completely bald. Both men carried pistols, and wore expensive looking suits with Black Mesa insignias on the side. They were the enemy.

The larger man looked down at the photos on the ground, where Emile had dropped them in his haste to hide. "Oh my God!" He exclaimed. "That's my mother!"

Shocked, Emile could only stare as the fat, old man who had once been the youngest, fastest member of the Blu team crouched down over the photos. The man immediately grabbed them and stuffed them in his breast pocket.

The younger man, Harold, gazed at the briefcase. "Let's just grab what we came here for and get out of here!" He said, almost pleadingly. He glanced down at the three bodies. "Please, Allie."

The Scout, whose real name was apparently Allie, agreed. "Yeah, way _too _many memories here." He said, looking down at the corpses of three men who he remembered, even after all these years, as family. "I wish that RED Spy was here right now, so I could. . ."

"Easy, my friend." Harold replied. He lit up a cigarette, and Emile's heart leapt in his throat. "This all happened years ago, he's probably dead by now!"

Clenching his fists, Allie snatched the briefcase and headed for the exit. He passed mere feet from Emile on his way out, and the former Spy realized that time had taken its toll on him, as well. His face was wrinkled, what little remained of his hair was grey, and he had a double chin. Emile was at least five years his senior, and still looked better than him.

Harold and the two Hunters followed Allie out, and Emile fell into step behind them, keeping track of how much Cloaking power he had as he followed, stopping when he had to. They walked up the straight stairs, and down into the courtyard. It was late evening now. As the two men and one of the Hunters exited the hut that housed the straight stairs, Emile quickly uncloaked and then kicked out one of the two legs of the other Hunter, hurting his leg and undoubtedly scuffing his dress shoe in the process. The Hunter fell backward, down the stairs, and Emile immediately put his Cloak back on as the other Hunter, followed by Allie and Harold, entered the shelter. Emile walked into the far corner of the hut, a place that he had hid in countless times before.

"What the hell was that?" Harold asked. "Do you think it just tripped?"

"You were right, Harold," Allie answered, his voice quivering with rage. "We aren't alone. There's a Spy around here." He said it the exact same way he had said it when he was younger, and Emile shivered, despite himself.

"That's crazy! RED has been defunct for years, and real Spies are pretty much extinct, now."

"Something took that thing down," Allie replied, "They don't just _fall_ down stairs, that's not how Black Mesa manufactured them!" He was yelling now. "Come on out, you snake-in-the-grass! Have the balls to face me!" He suddenly raised his pistol and fired three shots into each corner. Only Emile's reflexes, which had apparently never slowed, saved him from taking three bullets in the chest. He dove to the side.

"Allie-" Harold tried to restrain him, but he pushed the other man away. "Get off me!" Allie turned to the one remaining Hunter. "Find him." He snarled. "Harold, go back to the chopper and grab the guns!"

Harold, resigned to his superior's wishes, consented and ran off. Emile hurried down the stairs. Oblivious to his presence, the Hunter nonetheless followed.

Emile ran across the wide room, accidentally kicking one of the rusted shards of broken Sentry that rested in the middle of it. The Hunter behind him noticed the piece of debris moving, and charged in his direction. Emile dove out of the way, crouching in a corner. The Hunter made a mechanical sound as it searched the room for intruders, but saw none. Emile muttered a thank you to nobody in particular that Black Mesa didn't arm the Hunters with infrared. Cloaking was apparently such an obsolete technology that they didn't even defend against it anymore.

Emile watched the Hunter patrol the basement; it was definitely stupid. He pulled one of the deceased Blu Spy's electro-sappers from his jacket. He had taken the sappers, a revolver and the knife from the Heavy's back when he had grabbed the watch.

Emile held it up, looking for a place on the Hunter's back to drop it. So many things could go wrong; he wasn't even sure if it had human organs or mechanical ones. For all he knew, the Sapper was dead now, having not been used in decades. Either way, if the Sapper didn't kill the Hunter, Emile would be dead. He decided to try it, and turned off his cloak when the Hunter wasn't paying attention. Sensing his presence, it turned around, but it was too late. Emile stuck the Sapper to its head, and immediately it started to crackle with electricity, stumbling on its feet before crashing loudly to the ground.

"Hunter down!" He heard Allie shout from upstairs.

"What?" Harold replied. Emile ran back toward the straight stairs, keeping to the shadows, and glanced up. He could see both men standing there. Allie held a shotgun, while Harold held an assault rifle.

"A Hunter went down," Allie replied, holding a small remote in his hands that apparently must have shown the status of the two Hunters; dead and dead. "Now I know there's someone down there. Take these stairs down, I'll take the spiral ramp and we'll trap him!"

"Listen, Allie, we have the Intel, can't we just get out of here?"

Allie suddenly grabbed Harold by the collar and pinned him against the wall. "Listen, I've been hunting this guy for _years_ for what he had done to my team! As soon as I was discharged, I went to Blu's files, and they said that RED and Blu each only had _one_ Spy in their employ! The Blu Spy died, all those years ago, at the hands of this Red Spy! All of them died to this Spy, who had apparently taken _my_ appearance to trap and kill them! Now I learn that he seduced and slept with my mother! He has insulted me too many times, so hurry down there and help me find him!"

"Yes sir!" Harold replied, and both men split up. Harold started running down the stairs, while Allie circled around, undoubtedly to trap Emile on the other side.

Emile kept to the shadows, drawing his butterfly knife. He unfolded it with the same dexterity that he'd had as a young man; it was like shooting a gun, you never quite forgot how. The knife blade was black with the ancient blood of the Sniper, Soldier and Heavy. Emile's eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but Harold's were undoubtedly still quite bad. He was feeling in front of him as he walked down the stairs. Obviously the man had never been in a real combat situation, or he'd be dead by now.

Emile waited for the man to pass, stumbling over one of the fallen Hunters, and then he fell into step behind the man, raising his knife. His shoes had not been made for stealth, however, especially this close behind somebody. The bespectacled man whirled around, crying out in panic, and swung his gun. It connected with Emile, and the bloody knife flew off, clattering in the darkness. Emile reeled backward, falling on his back, and pulled the gun from his jacket. He fired twice while on the ground, hearing one shot miss, but also hearing a _thud _as the second shot connected with the man's shoulder. Harold reached into his holster, pulling out a pistol. Emile scrabbled to his feet as the other man started firing blindly into the darkness that concealed him. Emile bolted up the stairs, and Harold fired two shots in his direction, missing both times. Emile continued to run, emerging into the courtyard. It was almost nightfall; that middle-time of sunset when it is impossible to properly adjust one's vision. Emile hopped down onto the dirt floor; his knees weren't used to the strain after so many years of desk work, and he crumpled gracelessly to the ground with a grunt. From the direction of the Resupply, Allie the former Scout appeared in the doorway. "Don't move!" He shouted down to Emile, who had gotten to his hands and knees.

"He shot me!" Harold cried, limping up the stairs to the doorway behind Emile. "That bastard shot me!"

"Keep your gun on him!" Allie said to Harold, before promptly turning around and walking toward the Resupply room.

"Where are you going?" Harold demanded.

"Just don't do anything, and keep him there!" Allie called back.

Emile heard the unmistakeable sound of the Resupply door being opened. Grunting, he glanced over his shoulder at Harold. The man was holding his shoulder with one hand, and a pistol with the other. Emile tightened his grip on the revolver, which he sheltered from Harold's sight with his own body.

Allie walked back into the courtyard, climbing down the steps to the ground floor and coming to stand only inches from Emile. The former Spy looked up, and found himself staring down two barrels.

"Remember this?" Allie asked, cocking the lever of the Scattergun. Emile didn't take his eyes off the weapon. He did remember the weapon. He had sat in his room on many a night after a hard battle, picking pieces of buckshot out of his body.

"Not so tough now, are ya? ARE YA?" Allie demanded, jabbing forward with the gun and catching Emile in the face. Emile heard a crack and tasted blood as he fell, landing on his back in the dirt. He still held the revolver in both hands, and Allie's eyes widened in terror as Emile pulled the trigger. A bullet caught Allie in the stomach, and he stumbled backward.

Ignoring the blood that was trickling down from his nose, Emile rolled around and fired the revolver at Harold, emptying the chamber on the unsuspecting man. Two bullets struck Allie's associate; one caught him in the chest, and the other one got his head.

Allie brought the Scattergun to bear on Emile, but the older man rolled out of the way at the last second and the shot missed. Dust shot up from the dirt where the scattered pieces of buckshot landed. Pressing a button on his watch, Emile immediately cloaked and limped away, on a sore ankle, out of the courtyard. He fled until he reached the spiral stairs, and then he hid in a shadowy corner and reloaded his weapon. As he experimentally felt his nose for fractures, Emile pondered on the last time he had faced Allie, years ago.

_"There's a Spy around here!" The Blu Scout had called, to nobody in particular. The Red Spy watched as the Scout ran around in circles, batting thin air, trying to catch him. The Spy was cloaked, however, and the Scout was nowhere close to him. The Spy had been with the young man's mother mere days ago, and now he was watching the boy running around in panic, frantically swinging at an invisible foe._

_ Slightly amused, the Spy dropped his cigarette to the floor and snuffed it out with his foot. They were both standing on the dry platform on the BLU side of the underground canal, in the area the team dubbed _"The Sewer",_ at the point where the pipe turned at a right angle. A blue neon sign said _Intelligence _on a wall nearby. The Spy drew his Revolver, and pressed a button on his watch. His cloak began falling away. The Scout suddenly threw a ball into the air and hit it with his bat, straight at the Spy. The RED mercenary tried to duck, but the ball came at him too fast, and he was stunned. The Scout fired a blast with his Scattergun – both barrels – and the Spy fell to the ground, dead._

_ The Scout immediately began to taunt, slapping his thigh victoriously. "That's what I'm talkin' about!" He shouted into the air. "That Spy just transformed into a dead guy!"_

_ Meanwhile, not far away, a RED Spy that was very much alive appeared out of thin air, a cigarette in his mouth, as the effects of the Dead Ringer wore off._

_ The Spy fired one shot with his revolver, striking the Scout in the throat, and the younger man immediately switched from taunting to screaming. "Medic!" He cried, as he bolted back toward the canal. The Spy didn't give chase; he would never catch the man. As time would tell, however, the Scout did get caught; the next day, the entire Blu team would obliterated. "Well that was a disappointment," The Spy muttered to himself, referring to his non-fatal shot. He opened his cigarette kit, and took on the guise of the Scout. He checked the shotgun wounds that were shallowly lodged in his chest, feeling the torn fabric of his suit beneath the disguise. He would eventually need a Medic, and a seamstress. He proceeded deeper into the Blu base._

Emile let out a long, shuddering sigh, breathing through his mouth because of the coagulating blood in his nose, as he loaded bullets into the revolver. Regrettably, he had lost his knife.

"Come out, you freaking coward!" He heard Allie shouting from the adjacent room. Emile peered around the corner, and saw the man pacing the room, shotgun in hand. Allie had abandoned his jacket, and was wearing a light blue dress shirt underneath, again with the Black Mesa insignia on the arm. His old bat bag was slung over his shoulder, and Emile saw a pistol hanging from his belt – although the pistol was undoubtedly the one that Allie had entered the base with, it still gave off an uncanny illusion of his younger self, albeit now much older and fatter.

Emile opened a cigarette kit that he had taken from the Blu Spy, and took out a stale cigarette. He lit it and put it in his mouth, savouring the taste despite the obvious rot.

Allie paced for a few more minutes, when suddenly he heard something. He turned around, facing the courtyard again, and saw Harold climbing up the wooden stairs. There were bullet wounds in his chest, shoulder, and a small piece of his skull was exposed from where the bullet had grazed his head and took his ear off.

"Help. . . me, Allie." Harold croaked.

Allie lowered the shotgun, and hurried over to Harold. "How bad are ya?" He asked, concern in his voice. Harold was an old friend of his; he'd trained the younger man since Harold had signed on with Black Mesa. Harold slung his arm over Allie's shoulder, and Allie carried him across the room.

"Is. . . the Intel. . . okay?" Harold asked.

"Yeah, it's in the chopper." Allie replied. "Oh, jeez, look at you. We shoulda just left with the Intelligence, and let that Spy. . ."

Allie paused, and looked over at Harold. The man was staring back at him with eyes that appeared to be half-clouded. Harold was reaching slowly into his jacket pocket. . .

Vivid images assaulted Allie's mind. The surveillance images from the Intel room, a seemingly friendly Blu Scout advancing on an unsuspecting Soldier and Heavy, drawing a knife from his pocket – With a cry, Allie tossed Harold away. The man landed on his back on the floor, the cigarettes flying from his pocket. Without a thought, Allie fired the Scattergun. Harold convulsed once, and then was still. Heart pounding, Emile backed away from the corpse and leaned against the wall, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Bravo," An unmistakeably French voice applauded him, and his heart immediately sank. He turned to the source of the sound. Emile still stood in the doorway of the spiral stairs, beneath the neon Intelligence sign. He had a revolver trained on Allie's chest.

"Why don't you just lay your weapons down and walk away?" Emile offered. "You have already lost your friend, your machines, and your dignity. If you surrender now, you may at least keep your life."

Allie was still hunched over against the wall, wincing at the wound in his belly. "You took everything from me, Spy!" He spat. "My team – they were my family. This. . . this place meant everything to me! It was my home!"

Emile's expression didn't change, although he felt his heart soften a little inside. He could definitely relate. Although the RED gig was no more than just a job at the time, he now considered those days the best of his life. But he was currently dealing with a sprained ankle and a nose fracture, at best. This was no time for sympathy.

"The world has evolved, Spy." Allie continued. "We're the last of a dying breed, you and I. Soon there will only be one of us, and eventually none." Allie smiled, a self-deprecating grin. "If only I'd known what that _Bonk!_ Atomic Punch would do to me when I got older," He said. "I guess it won't matter now if you know I'm sterile, and have a poor digestive system and failing heart. Those were good times, though. Simpler times."

Emile kept his revolver steady.

"I guess this is like a final mission," Allie looked up, meeting Emile's eyes, "for both of us. Grab the Intelligence, and bring it back to the base. Just like old times, right? But this time, we're both after the same Intel, and the stakes are much, much higher."

Emile was suddenly wary, again. He had no idea what Allie was thinking.

"If Black Mesa gets its hands on this technology, the world will change completely. Aperture simply can't combat this technology. The world will be ours, Spy, and you will be DEAD!" On the final word, he brought the Scattergun up. Both men fired at the same time – one shot each. They never broke eye contact during the firing, but immediately afterward both sets of eyes drifted down to Allie's chest. There was a bullet hole where his heart was. He immediately slumped to the floor next to his dead friend's corpse.

A few seconds after Allie's collapse, Emile began to feel the wound that the comparatively younger man had dealt him. He looked down, and saw that his torso was peppered with buckshot. Pain flooded his entire body, and he fell to one knee. He looked over at the dead Scout, blood forming a red pool around his rotund figure. Then he looked to the Medic, who was nothing but dry bones. It seemed fitting that Allie had died in his home, amongst his family. But the Blu base was no place for Emile to kick the bucket. Shirking his jacket, Emile used his shirt to bandage himself. Like a dog he limped out of the Blu base, leaving Builders League United behind him for one last time as he got into the Black Mesa helicopter, and started it up. The plane was automated, but the co-ordinates were very easy to change. After casting a confirming glance at the Intel briefcase in the passenger seat, Emile flew away to Aperture Science.

"Good work, Mr. Delacheroix."

Emile was walking alongside his boss, Mr. Smith, in the immaculate white hallways of Aperture Science. Fluorescents beamed down on them. Emile's nose was bandaged, and he walked with a cane as he favoured his fractured foot. More bandages wrapped around his torso, beneath a red pinstriped suit – bought with his reward money. A teenage girl was tagging along with the two men – Mr. Smith had introduced her as Chell. She had come along for Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.

"We've input the information that you have brought us to GlaDos, and if all goes well we will have fully functional Portal technology before the new year."

"What about Black Mesa?" Emile asked.

"They took a hit, that's for sure, but they seem to be combating this breakthrough with one of their own. They've got a panel of top scientists working around the clock to test some kind of 'Resonance Cascade', which is apparently their own way of pioneering black hole technology to create portals."

Emile grunted. Science was getting out of control now. GLaDoS, a computer that handled absolutely everything in Aperture from science to security, was difficult enough for him to swallow. Now Black Mesa was testing Black Holes. Emile reached into the breast pocket of his new suit, pulling out an old, beaten cigarette case, a souvenir from his 2Fort trip, and extracted a cigarette.

"Anyway, Mr. Delacheroix, with this Resonance Cascade thing in full throttle, I have a feeling we're going to need a lot more hands-on work in the field, if you're up to – excuse me, but you can't smoke in here!" He pulled his daughter away from the older man.

"There are much more dangerous things than cigarettes out there, Mr. Smith," Emile replied, taking another drag from his own. Despite the nose, the leg, and the stomach, he was suddenly feeling better than he had in a long time. Perhaps the feeling of impending doom that had come from the words "Resonance Cascade" had liberated him in a way. He reached into his pocket again, pulling out a red mask, and slipped it on, ignoring the pain in his nose as the fabric slipped over it. Chell wasn't just wrinkling her nose in disgust – she had moved away in fear, now.

"I will take six days' rest – with pay – while I recuperate. By evening of the seventh day, I will call you from Black Mesa. I will be using the alias. . . G-Man."

Mr. Smith opened his mouth to say something, but by then Emile had disappeared into thin air, leaving only a lingering smell of cigarette smoke. The cane lay abandoned at Smith's feet. Chell clutched to him, her eyes wide with fear and confusion. Unseen by everyone but GlaDos and her infrared cameras, Emile smirked. The Spy was back.


End file.
